News tagged with vikings

(PhysOrg.com) -- In 1976 the NASA Viking landers took samples of soil on Mars and tested them for signs of organic carbon. A reinterpretation of the results now suggests the samples did contain organic compounds, ...

(PhysOrg.com) -- The Vikings are said to have been able to navigate with the aid of "sunstones" that allowed them to see the sun on cloudy or foggy days. Now scientists in Hungary and Sweden say the sunstones ...

The Curiosity rover is currently on its way to Mars, scheduled to make a dramatic landing within Gale Crater in mid-August and begin its hunt for the geologic signatures of a watery, life-friendly past. Solid ...

Although eleventh-century Vikings did not have magnetic compasses at their disposal, it is thought that they could determine their orientation at sea using sun-compasses. Sun-compasses use the position of ...

(Phys.org)—A new study shows that when Vikings moved to new territories, men and women traveled together. Erika Hagelberg of the University of Oslo and her colleagues compared ancient Norse and Icelandic ...

A rough, whitish block recovered from an Elizabethan shipwreck may be a sunstone, the fabled crystal believed by some to have helped Vikings and other medieval seafarers navigate the high seas, researchers ...

(Phys.org) —A team of researchers working in Hungary has proposed that a sun compass artifact found in a convent in 1948 might have been used in conjunction with crystals to allow Vikings to guide their ...

Vikings are known for raiding and trading, but those who settled in Iceland centuries ago spent more time producing and consuming booze and beef—in part to gain political clout in a place very different ...

A mass grave found in Dorset could belong to a crew of Viking mercenaries who terrorised Europe in the 11th century  according to a new documentary on National Geographic which pieces together the story ...

The connections between technology, urban trading, and international economics which have come to define modern living are nothing new. Back in the first millennium AD, the Vikings were expert at exploring ...

Scientists at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in Teddington have worked with the Wallace Collection to analyse the contents of Viking swords - and the results shed new light on trade routes in the middle ...